Life in the Details
by Luna Rosa
Summary: Ianto Jones sees his life in focus.


**Life in the Details**

Fandom: Torchwood  
Summary: Ianto Jones sees his life in focus.  
Status: one-shot  
Spoilers: Takes place somewhere between _Coutrycide_ (EP 6) and _They keep Killing Suzie_ (Ep 8). Implied spoiler for last scene in _Susie_ and Doctor Who Episode _Doomsday._  
Rating: PG-13  
Originally posted: lovegrrl. Note: Beta thanks and much praise go to Maple Shy for her comments and suggestions. This is my first Torchwood fanfic and hopefully not my last. Written as a diary entry. Concrit appreciated!

It turns out, in the end, it's not the big things that matter, but the small things. Things we hardly even question that end up changing the course of our lives forever. Our destiny decided in the smallest detail. The crossing of the T's and dotting of the I's. Something as simple as being in the wrong place at the right time, asking one more question or just saying 'Yes!' Allowing yourself a possibility of something different in life.

Details... it's all just details, but now - looking back - I know Life is in the details.

I can't help remember how young I was when I first went to London. Younger than I realised at the time. I'd never heard of TW before, but they came to Cardiff just for me. I was easily flattered. They had headhunted me straight from college and they were impressive. The way they talked, TW was the monolith of the British Empire. Established by Queen Vic herself, with its own laws and procedures, and from the moment I'd heard about it I _wanted_ it more than anything I could remember. So I'd gone to London full of hope and expectation and the first thing I did when got there was fall in love.

I hadn't even unpacked.

Lisa. She made me nervous. Made my heart beat madly and my head spin. I stuttered like a schoolboy when we were introduced but she smiled and held out her hand with a confident smile saying, 'I always liked the Welsh'. I think I actually blushed and shook her hand only briefly so she wouldn't realise my palms were sweating.

That began the steepest learning curve of my life. No, it's not a curve, it's a vertical climb. TW was The _Universe_ is overwhelming. I had never believed we were alone. Anyone with basic mathematical skills could work that out. Even if only point zero seven per cent of the universe is populated, and that's not taking into account parallel universes and alternate dimensions... the sheer volume of alien life is amazing! The amount of technology, and the things it can do... it was almost too much for a simple boy from Wales to take, no matter how much Star Trek I'd watched.

_And __I loved it_!

Loved knowing all this existed and even if knowing it made the world seem that little bit smaller, that _little bit_ more dangerous, I wouldn't have traded it for anything. Not even a Raxiforcorian Life Charm, and if you knew what that is then I think you'd understand.

I miss that feeling. The awe it fills in you. Like a kid on Christmas day. I look at Gwen and I _envy_ her. We all do, no matter how much Owen slags her off about it. It's all still new and amazing to her. Even the bad stuff she's seen hasn't blunted or dulled her soul. Not yet, anyway.

I envy that, I truly do! The rest of us... we've lost it along the way and it's made us less human somehow. I know that's why they need the rush of adrenaline. To push themselves to the edge of life just so they can feel the relief of still _being_ alive, if only for a moment. Because they don't get it anywhere else. _Can't_ get it anywhere else.

The work has deadened us! Dampened our souls, killed off our humanity to the point that another dead body is just that; a body. Not a life. Not a person with hopes and dreams and people who loved them because if you keep thinking like that - if you see each body as a human being to be saved - I think you go mad.

And we've lost too many to The Madness along the way.

But I'm going off the point, because I _did_ have that once. That awe at every new discovery, the intrigue of trying to figure out a fresh alien puzzle or the latest gadget from a scavenger hunt.

And in all this wonderful madness there was Lisa. The first women I'd ever truly loved and luckily enough loved me too. We were like some warped version of The Avengers. Working for a Top Secret organisation with all the privileges to show for it. The first weekend we moved in together we spent in bed. I can finally smile at the memory. I was in heaven. I never wanted anything to change. The world could have ended and I wouldn't have cared.

But of course, it did end.

I realise now that I lied to you about life being in the details. But... then again, maybe _that_ day was the exception that proves the rule. The one all-encompassing, life-changing event that happens so human beings realise how lucky we are, how fragile and how bloody ignorant.

The Battle of Canary Wharf. That's what the papers called it. Although they missed a lot of the detail and even now I'm not sure if that was a deliberate attempt to comfort the public or if they really just fucked it up. After the 'Ghosts' I think people would have believed anything. I even remember hearing a theory that it was a Tory attempt to eliminate Labour support. People do have a tendency to believe lies while ignoring the blatant truth that an alien force had _obliterated_ us.

But then, obliteration isn't the right term, no matter how much I wish it was. Obliteration suggests destruction - death - an End. What actually happened was much, _much_ worse. Assimilation is a better word, if you'll excuse the Borg reference - I really do have to stop watching Star Trek - but I suppose Borg was the closest reference I had to what they were at the time.

And Lisa. My dear, sweet, beautiful, funny, hot-tempered Lisa, was one of the last to be taken. I don't know what was worse, finding her half mutilated body in the mess of the dead or realising she could still _feel_. Still knew who she was, who _I_ was, and would scream with the pain electrocuting her as the cyber technology tried to take over. I _couldn't_ leave her in that pain, if nothing else because I loved her. I found a way to keep her human side alive. I worked non-stop. She'd always said I was a computer geek. My own desperation made me oblivious to what was going on around me, so that when He showed up two days after the void had been closed I was the only one left in TW Tower. Everyone else was dead, missing in action or had fled after her Majesty disbanded the Canary Wharf project. I was the only one 'manning the stations'. Keeping things ticking over until the clean-up team arrived.

He strode up to me, teeth gleaming, hair perfect and said, "I'm looking for The Doctor." As if he had an appointment or something.

"You're a bit late then, aren't you,' I replied, hardly looking up from some random file. My way out of trouble, or questions, had always been to look busy.

"Disappeared again, has he?" he frowned conversationally as he looked around the remnants of what used to be the main reception. "Left his mess behind as usual, though."

"I'm sorry," I finally said in exacerbation, "who are you?"

He turned towards me, his smile set in place, a look I could tell he'd used before, and held out his hand. "Captain Jack Harkness."

"Captain of what, exactly?" I asked, not taking the offered hand.

"Depends on who's asking," he replied easily, and I swore I saw a jolt of something like pleasure in his eyes. "Does it really matter?"

"I like to cross the T's."

His smile turned slightly wicked then. "I'd like to help you with that sometime. For now..." He pulled his arm up and I saw he had a sonic wrist band, not the kinda gadget you could pick up in Argos. "We better get to work!"

And that was it! I never really questioned his authority after that. To be honest it was a relief to have something else to focus on. A _job_ to do, orders to follow, even if it was just a clean up operation. When the chance came to move to Cardiff, I jumped at it. It wasn't just the idea of being back home, although the thought was comforting after the madness of London. TW Cardiff was a smaller operation, a monitoring outpost really. Sitting on top of the Rift and taking care of all the shit that came through. There'd be less people to lie to and more time to work and I'd be able to keep my TW contacts, because always at the back of everything was Lisa and the need to save her, to heal her.

I went down to Cardiff and scouted it out before using one of TW 1's SUV's to bring Lisa down when the others were off on another expedition. By the time they were back, I had everything set up in one of the lower level chambers, Lisa was as comfortable as possible and I kept myself as available when needed but out of the way otherwise so as not to raise suspicion.

I wasn't stupid enough to think I'd get away with it forever but I didn't _need_ forever. Just a few weeks I thought and Lisa would be fine, but weeks turned into months and before I knew it... I should have realised it would all go wrong, but I was blinded you see, by love and determination and my own arrogance that I could handle it on my own. (Jack calls it TW Tower syndrome.) But maybe I kept it secret because I _knew_ what Jack's reaction would be. That he wouldn't even give her a chance before killing her. He didn't know her like I did, didn't know how much of her was still human and it's because of that that I hated him for giving me the choice to deal the death blow. For him it would have been easy, but Jack was never about easy options. I wonder if he just wanted to see what I would do. He studies us so closely sometimes, as if he's learning from our reactions how _he's_ expected to act, but then he's so full of life at other times, so teasing and playful and angry, I think I imagine it.

I won't go into a full explanation of that night, it's too long and I have to learn to leave the past where it belongs, but I do want to talk about one thing, because I think it must have been that night when everything changed. Not in the big way you'd imagine but in that small fleeting way you never notice until much later.

I remember dying. I remember seeing the end come and I guess I embraced it because at that moment I couldn't imagine any life without Lisa... and if I'm honest, I'd been without her for months at that stage, but Jack... Jack was _there_, in the darkness. I could feel him, smell him and then... he brought me back. I can't explain it and he never has. I know we had some success with short-term revival using the glove but the price we paid for that little experiment turned out to be much greater than we'd imagined.

What Jack gave me I can only describe as the Kiss of Life. Even with the work I do and the things I've seen, I'd always imagined it legend. They say even the most fanciful myth has some basis in fact. _The Kiss of Life_... but it was more than that. It was like something of him passed into me, some subconscious knowledge or understanding, maybe even his _own_ life force. As he pulled away, I looked into his silently pleading eyes and I knew, even after the lies and betrayal, even after everything I had done, he couldn't, _wouldn't_ let me die.

And after, when Lisa was gone and everyone was openly shunning me, Jack let me back without question. He knew I needed TW as much as him, more maybe because I didn't have anything else. I was still that simple boy from Wales but my hopes had been crushed and the only thing I had left was crossing the T's and dotting the I's.

I should tell you about something else that happened after that. I'll try to explain in the best way I can but it confuses me even now. I can't put a name to it, well I guess I could try but then Owen insists I'm awful at and I should just stick to making tea. That makes me smile because if he only realised the things I know. But after the kiss... I began to understand Jack. It wasn't the same as the way Gwen is intrigued by him, Owen grudgingly looks up to him, Tosh fancies him or even the way Suzie had envied him. It _was_ all those things... and more!

I understood the smallest look, a turn of the head or a tilt of the wrist beyond simple body language or TW Basic Psychic Training. (Not that BPT ever worked on Jack.) I began to notice how he watched us. Knowing us. Taking care of us all but not allowing himself to get too close. Letting the door on all those he's lost stay firmly closed. And I understand that more than the others. I understand what it is to have that part of you, the part that is somehow open to others, ripped out and destroyed. I understand what it is to love someone and yet be afraid of what that love will end up doing because you've had your skin ripped raw before and it only grew back thicker. So, you keep your distance and do what you can without getting involved. Whether that's taking command, shouting orders, handing them their coat or just being there, in the background, in the periphery of vision, ready to be called upon.

Then I noticed him watching me. It was subtle at first which is unusual for Jack because if he wants something he'll usually just come out with it. Captain Jack Harkness has never been known for small gestures. But the thing is... before long... I find myself looking back. It's not like I'm attracted to him, well no more than everyone else seems to be anyway, but Jesus, it feels like there's an invisible current between us and I can't help stay late at night, long after everyone else has gone home, just so we're alone together. Nothing happening, we haven't even spoken about it but we both sense it and I can't believe no one else has noticed when I feel it so keenly.

In those moments, late at night, I see my future. I see years to come, when Gwen is playing the happy housewife a little less successfully than she would have before TW. Owen has succumbed to some alien nymphomaniac and Tosh has finally patented some major computer programme and made millions and I'll still be in TW with Jack. Fighting to the end. Shoulder to shoulder and hand in hand.


End file.
